Deloitte and Accenture tapped for Essential Energy Oracle integration

Deloitte and Accenture were both involved in integrating Oracle solutions for electricity distributor Essential Energy.

The two partners were brought in to assist in the modernisation of the electricity distributor’s operations and replacing legacy software solutions. As part of this work, Deloitte was brought on to integrate Oracle Cloud ERP and Oracle Cloud HCM, while Accenture integrated Oracle Utilities Work and Asset Cloud Service (WACS).

In the latter case, Oracle Utilities WACS is being used to provide Essential Energy with insights, modelling and planning capabilities, maximising the distributor’s ability to manage network assets and better support communities, businesses and residential customers.

Essential Energy’s network covers 95 per cent of NSW and parts of southern Queensland, providing services to more than 890,000 customers.

According to Oracle, this is expected in the longer term to enable clearer visibility into Essential Energy asset and works management processes to support its electricity network.

In addition to the integrated solutions, Essential Energy is also using Oracle Fusion Cloud Applications Suite, which gives the distributor access to new features added every 90 days without downtime or business disruption.

The new system creates a centralised, and common data model for asset and financial management, with Essential Energy able to improve business insights, enhance operational efficiency and optimise workforce management in order to meet evolving customer expectations.

“To strengthen our core business, we needed the right technology to modernise and replace a number of legacy software solutions used to manage our asset and works management value chain,” said Essential Energy head of asset engineering, risk and compliance Brad Thomas.

“Oracle’s solutions are helping us manage over 10 million assets, systemise maintenance requirements, and provide an end-to-end view of our asset management system. With these tools we have improved our asset management practices and aligned our enterprise systems.”

During Oracle’s CloudWorld Tour conference in Sydney on 18 March, Australia and New Zealand (A/NZ) regional managing director Stephen Bovis said its work with Essential Energy highlights the necessity for it to collaborate on major projects to result in value for end customers.

The new system was put to the test earlier this month when Ex-Tropical Cyclone Alfred reached Southeast Queensland and northern NSW, he added.

“Essential Energy … were under significant stress a couple of weeks back in terms of providing [services] when the Cyclone came through,” Bovis said.

“What we’ve been able to do is help them modernise their environment using our cloud technologies, which meant that they were able to effectively return services to those that were impacted in the in a much faster time frame.”